So before leaving Italy today, after a fantastic week in the Umbrian countryside with our Sovereign Man Total Access members, I set out to mail him some postcards. What I got, among other things, was a useful lesson in Italian bureaucracy.

In Hong Kong, on the rare occasion I need to mail a letter, I put a few coins in the vending machine on the outside wall of the post office. Space is a prized commodity that costs a lot of money in Hong Kong, so post offices are small and efficient.

Here in Rome, the main post office at Piazza San Silvestro is in a majestic old building with imposing architecture. There were acres of cavernous space inside that could have been much better used by high-end retail shops earning a profit. Instead it goes to Italy’s famously slow, inefficient, loss-making postal service.

It was a procession just to buy a few stamps. Stand here, stand there. Take this ticket, fill out this form, print that form. What should have taken 10 seconds took 10 minutes. I finally got what I needed, but the process it took to get there was a real eye opener.

They have all these fancy IT systems—the mail clerk was in a clicking frenzy moving from screen to screen with all sorts of dropdown menus and product codes. But I get the sense that this ‘technology’ just gives the post office a veneer of modernity and sophistication without actually being necessary or adding any value.

This is typical of bureaucracy: take a simple task, make it unnecessarily complicated, then spend a bunch of money on technology that makes it even more complicated.

Given my experience this morning, Italy has clearly mastered the art of unnecessarily complicating the simple. It’s no wonder they have serious problems paying the bills.

Robust economies are productive… and productivity is typically not associated with the elderly. Italy has one of the world’s oldest populations concurrent with one of the lowest birth rates.

This trend drives an unsustainable fiscal quandary: bloated public sector bills with lots of old people to pay pensions to, coupled with a rapidly shrinking population devoid of young workers to pay taxes.

At this point, Simon and I both agree there can be little doubt that Italy will exit the eurozone… most likely voluntarily. A return to the lira means the Italian government (probably to be headed by Berlusconi once again) would be free to print currency at will. This is the only reasonable solution remaining.

(Simon thinks they’ll probably even make up some silly patriotic-sounding name like ‘new strong lira’…)

When will it happen? Probably sooner than we think. Look at the European bond market— making a loan to the Italian government for three years yields just 3.642%… an absurdly low figure given the country’s untenable finances.

Meanwhile the same loan made to the German government yields less than one one-hundredth of that amount (0.034%…) Yields on shorter duration bonds (2-year and below) are all negative.

In other words, you lose money loaning to the German government for up to two years. This is the period of time that the bond market is sensing maximum risk, and it may be worth considering as a final window for the euro’s demise.

Our goal is simple: To help you achieve personal liberty and financial prosperityno matter what happens.

If you liked this post, please click the box below. You can watch a compelling video you’ll find very interesting.

Will you be prepared when everything we take for granted changes overnight?

Just think about this for a couple of minutes. What if the U.S. Dollar wasn’t the world’s reserve currency? Ponder that… what if…

Empires Rise, they peak, they decline, they collapse, this is the cycle of history.

This historical pattern has formed and is already underway in many parts of the world, including the United States.

Don’t be one of the millions of people who gets their savings, retirement, and investments wiped out.

About the author: Born to a Danish father and British mother, in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, Tim Staermose has led an international life since the day he was born. Growing up, he also lived in Egypt, Denmark, and Singapore, before eventually settling in Australia, where he completed his education and took out citizenship.
Since then he has also lived and worked in Hong Kong, and Manila, Philippines, in the field of equity research — both for a bulge-bracket Wall Street investment bank, and for an independent investment research firm.
Today, when not traveling the globe looking for investment and business opportunities for the Sovereign Man community and catching up with his diverse, multinational group of friends, he divides his time between Hong Kong, and the Philippines.

Comments on this entry are closed.

Mack Truck

Yep, that would be Italy. When I was driving in Italy on a toll road last autumn, I put Euros into the machine and it gave me change, more than I put in. Italy paid me to drive on its toll road at a profit to me. Go figure. … :) N. Italy should be its own nation.

Stuck on you.

Fill out forms for a stamp? That’s got to be the epitome of bureaucratic idiocy. Until they create forms to fill out to get the other forms.

Antiehypocrite

I saw this on another site:

Miss Ragini Dhanvantray, aged 45, pleaded guilty on 10 March 2010 to committing the offences and was fined a total of $21,000 – or $7,000 on each of the three charges of authorising the false lodgements under section 401(2A)(b) of the Companies Act, Cap.50. Two similar charges were taken into consideration for the purposes of sentencing

Kevin

Germany’s post offices used to be like Italy’s as well. Centralized queuing didn’t even occur to them until a few years ago (which UK P.O.s have had for 20 years now).

They’ve improved a lot now – they also bought DHL. But for years they were in the dark ages. Sounds like Italy’s still are.

Re robust economy… There’s a big North-South divide in Italy, but a lot of Italian (and French and Spanish) entrepreneurs prefer to move to London to run their businesses. Much easier and more startup friendly than in their home countries.

http://www.facebook.com/sokoyeocha Samuel Okoyeocha

hmmm! euro! one currency with one govt, lets continue watching

James Blair

The world is so interconnected that should the Euro fail so will the IMF and other Feudal Reserve Banks